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Adapted to live in ephemeral wetlands, the usually inconspicuous Cook’s lomatium comes into its own for a short time in the early spring, after winter rains bless its desert-like home with ample water and the plant bursts into bloom — flowering and setting seed all before the hot, dry summer sets in. But since the 1980s, the species has lost more than 50 percent of its range to development, and none of its remaining habitat has escaped the invasion of weedy competitors. With fewer and fewer vernal-pool wetlands to call its own, the Cook’s lomatium is increasingly denied even the modest growing space it needs to survive.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Endangered
YEAR LISTED: 2002
CRITICAL HABITAT: None
RECOVERY PLAN: Draft 2006
RANGE: The Agate Desert and French Flat in southwestern Oregon’s Jackson and Josephine counties
THREATS: Industrial, commercial, and residential development; road and power-line construction and maintenance; hydrologic alteration; livestock grazing; agricultural conversion; weed competition; mowing; roadside spraying; gold mining, logging, fire suppression, and uncontrolled off-road vehicle use
POPULATION TREND: By 2002, while some populations had shown local increases in abundance, the plant’s overall Agate Desert range had declined by roughly 50 percent. As of 2006, the Cook’s lomatium was reduced to 13 populations and about 34,000 total plants in the Agate Desert, along with about 24 populations that were found in the French Flat area.
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SAVING THE COOK'S LOMATIUM
The Cook’s lomatium and large-flowered wooly meadowfoam, two species that can only live in seasonally wet areas in a small portion of southwestern Oregon, are in increasing danger as more and more of their habitat is lost — eaten away by so many threats it’s difficult to name them all. While the largest Cook’s lomatium populations are located within Jackson County’s protected Agate Desert Preserve, alteration of land adjacent to the Preserve disrupts its hydrologic processes and degrades the habitat it provides; in addition, lack of protective fencing fails to keep out off-road vehicles and earth-moving equipment. Vernal-pool habitat, formerly widespread south of the Rogue River, has now been almost completely eliminated — and none of what’s left is undisturbed.
In 2002, 10 years after the Center and allies sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to list about 500 imperiled species — including the Cook’s lomatium — the Service declared both the Cook’s lomatium and the meadowfoam to be endangered under the Endangered Species Act. But at the time of listing, the Service failed to designate critical habitat for either plant — claiming that “funding restraints” made it impossible. Finally, as a result of a Center lawsuit, the Service agreed in 2008 that it would finalize a critical habitat designation for the Cook’s lomatium and large-flowered wooly meadowfoam by 2010.
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Contact:
Ileene Anderson
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